I don't think so.Quote:
Originally Posted by FFN
Sure alot of the Scramble City limbs weren't great as stand alone figures, But other individual figures (eg. the Constructicons) weren't too bad at all. :)
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I don't think so.Quote:
Originally Posted by FFN
Sure alot of the Scramble City limbs weren't great as stand alone figures, But other individual figures (eg. the Constructicons) weren't too bad at all. :)
I dunno... I found some of them were okay. A lot of the Scramble City-gimmicked gestalts' limbformers were poor, mostly because many of them suffered from that "blockhead" syndrome. The Aerialbots were particularly poor because the limbformers are all basically the same design and same transformation - offered little variety between those toys. The other teams were pretty decent and offered better variety. Having said that, the vehicle modes were decent and the interchangeable limb gimmick was cool as. How many of us formed "bastard gestalts" as children because we only had a few limbs from different teams but not enough to form a full proper gestalt robot? That was awesome because it meant that you could form a gestalt without having that entire particular set!
1988:http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y22...ay/g1_1988.jpg
Behold Defensutron - an Autobot gestalt made from a combination of Protectobots and Technobots! :)
I thought the Constructicons were really good as individual Transformers, but Devastator's a fairly ordinary gestalt. The Monster Pretenders were pretty crummy - just puny and the GPS has become the bane of our existence. :(
The Multi Forcers are pretty good Transformers considering their gimmick (IMO their gimmick works better than Energon's Power Linking in context of their respective vintages and the fact that the Energon Power Linking Autobots don't even form a gestalt) and a decent gestalt mode by G1 standards IMO. Breast Force/Lio Kaiser are just freakin' awesome - good robot modes and an exceptionally excellent gestalt mode by G1 standards. I haven't seen Road Caesar myself, but I think the Motivators are okay toys given their Brainmaster gimmick (which I don't think is much better or worse than other similar gimmicks during G1). The Micromaster gestalts have really good individual robots but the gestalt robots are pretty crappy because their merge transformation is basically a big cheat (even more so than Devastator!). :/
I quite like the Beast Wars gestalts - especially Tripredacus. Good individual robots with good beast modes and a well articulated and solid gestalt mode. He's full of awesomesauce. (^_^)
I'm sorry I have to strongly disagree here. I love J-Five & J-Seven, and J-Four is also strong. I love all four members of the Build Team, and while the combination isn't the best, it's very versatile. All of them are poseable toys with quite realistic alternate modes and clever transformations. I grant you that Superlink Superion isn't a strong combination, but the other teams are very well done.Quote:
Originally Posted by FFN
As for wanting strong designs... I find that one hard to swallow, after recent efforts like Energon Ironhide and his ridiculously visible head, the guns on movie Starscream which ruin the jet mode visually and rob the robot mode of hands and the Protoform Starscream which couldn't get a proper robot shape out of a _rock_.
Has/Tak have released some really bad moulds in recent years, so I can't believe that they're avoiding combiners because the toys aren't up to scratch. Heck, Hasbro _repainted_ Ironhide and subjected us to that bad idea all over again. I think the real reason is more like someone (I suspect it's the Tomy arm of TakaraTomy, actually) doesn't want to invest in the R&D getting the engineering to work.
Apparently there's going to be a combiner team in Animated, consisting of Jetstorm and Jetfire. I'm unsure if they combine in robot mode or in whatever their alt modes are. If they really ARE combiners, it doesn't give Hasbro/TakaraTomy an excuse not to remake G1 combiners due to complicated designs.
So you're saying that Jetstorm and Jetfire will be able to combine, but not sure if they're a Combiner (i.e. 2 robots into one alt mode) or a Gestalt (i.e.: 2 robots into one combined robot mode)?
I actually agree with FFN. I think that they are harder to design and get right b/c inevitably something has to suffer in order for them to link nicely. It's an awful lot of effort. JRX in my opinion is a horrible toy individually but the combined form is pretty high up there. You can tell that basically the bottom and top have been sacrificed at the expense of their individual transformations. The Build team too have very strange proportions on them. I think Superlink Bruticus was very nice but they pretty much cheated with the Superlink/Energon toys as really they only had to have three unique molds per combiner.Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
I do agree with this. I think it's very possible to make a good combiner but I think it's just too cost prohibitive which makes them too lazy to do it.Quote:
I think the real reason is more like someone (I suspect it's the Tomy arm of TakaraTomy, actually) doesn't want to invest in the R&D getting the engineering to work.
I like Rail Racer's combined mode, but I don't like how 'stiff' the individual guys are. They're fairly well articulated, but their design seems to be most confortable standing at attention. They don't seem to be very *fun* to me, is all.
*shrugs* The point was that its harder to come up with a toy that is good by itself and can transform to become part of another robot than it is to simply design a stand-alone toy.Quote:
Originally Posted by dirge
I think Tomy only has to worry about investing capital when they do a Transformers line or product independant of Hasbro, such as Music Label, Sports Label and Alternity. Otherwise if Hasbro's involved from the beginning, Hasbro would pay for it or at least offset the cost of development.
I'm not so much talking about investing capital as investing the time/effort/focus. TakaraTomy seems much happier to let Hasbro dictate the direction that Takara proper did, and doesn't seem to put a lot of effort into new ideas.
I highly suspect it will be something like dreadwind/darkwing. Two jets make a big jet. For some reason I can't recall right now, I think that's what it will be.Quote:
Originally Posted by SilverDragon
*suspects a Dreadwing/Darkwing repaint in the future if that's the case*
It'd be neat as an OTFCC repaint/retool (cos they would have different heads)